Super Micro Computer, Inc. |
 Supermicro Green Computing Park |
| Supermicro |
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| Company type | Public |
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| |
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| Industry | Information technology |
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| Founded | 1993; 31 years ago |
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| Founders | |
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| Headquarters | , United States |
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Number of locations | 11 |
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Key people | - Charles Liang (Chairman, President and CEO)
- David Weigand (CFO)
- Don Clegg (SVP of Worldwide Sales)
- George Kao (SVP of Operations)
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| Products | - BigTwin
- Ultra
- SuperBlade
- Rack servers
- GPU servers
- 5G/Telco
|
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| Revenue |  US$7.12 billion (2023) |
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| US$761 million (2023) |
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| US$640 million (2023) |
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| Total assets | US$3.67 billion (2023) |
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| Total equity | US$1.97 billion (2023) |
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Number of employees | 5,126 (2023) |
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| Website | supermicro.com |
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Footnotes / references
Financials as of June 30, 2023.[1] |
Super Micro Computer, Inc., dba Supermicro, is an information technology company based in San Jose, California. It has manufacturing operations in the Silicon Valley, the Netherlands and at its Science and Technology Park in Taiwan. Founded on November 1, 1993, Supermicro is one of the largest producers of high-performance and high-efficiency servers.[2] It also provides server management softwares, and storage systems for various markets, including enterprise data centers, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, 5G and edge computing.[3][4][5][6][7][8]
Supermicro's stock trades under the ticker symbol SMCI[9] on the Nasdaq exchange. Its fiscal year 2023 revenues were $7.1 billion and employs over 5,000 globally.[1]
History[edit]
In 1993, Supermicro began as a 5 person operation run by Charles Liang alongside his wife and company treasurer, Chiu-Chu Liu, known as Sara.[10] Prior to founding Supermicro, Liang earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology and a M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington. Liang holds several patents for server technology and was previously the president and chief design engineer of Micro Center Computer, a motherboard design and manufacturing company, from July 1991 to August 1993.[11]
International expansion, initial public offering[edit]
In 1996, the company opened a manufacturing subsidiary, Ablecom, in Taiwan, which is run by Charles's brother, Steve Liang and Bill Liang. Charles Liang and his wife own close to 31 percent of Ablecom, while Steve Liang and other members of the family own close to 50 percent.[3] In 1998, Supermicro opened a subsidiary in the Netherlands.[10]
In 2006, Supermicro pleaded guilty to a felony charge and paid a $150,000 fine due to a violation of a United States embargo against the sale of computer systems to Iran.[12] In a plea agreement, it was acknowledged that Supermicro became aware of the investigation in February 2004 and set up an export-control program that same year.[12]
On March 8, 2007, Supermicro raised $64 million in an initial public offering, selling 8 million shares at $8 a share.[13]
In 2009, Supermicro sold about $720 million worth of computer servers and related products and employed almost 1,100 people.[14]
In May 2010, Supermicro further expanded into Europe with the opening of its system integration logistics center in the Netherlands.[15]
In January 2012, Supermicro opened its Taiwan Science and Technology Park, totaling $99 million in construction costs.[16]
Server tampering allegation[edit]
On October 4, 2018, Bloomberg Businessweek published a report, citing unnamed corporate and governmental sources, which claimed that the Chinese People's Liberation Army had forced Supermicro's Chinese sub-contractors to add microchips with hardware backdoors to its servers. The report claimed that the compromised servers had been sold to U.S. government divisions (including the CIA and Department of Defense) and contractors and at least 30 commercial clients.[17][18][19] Supermicro denied the report, stating that they had not been contacted by government agencies and were unaware of any investigation.[20][21][22][23] The report was also disputed by sources and companies who were named therein.[22][21] On October 9, 2018, Bloomberg issued a second report, alleging that Supermicro-manufactured datacenter servers of an unnamed U.S. telecom firm had been compromised by a hardware implant on an Ethernet connector.[24][25][26]
On October 22, 2018, Supermicro announced that "despite the lack of any proof that a malicious hardware chip exists" it was reviewing its motherboards for potential spy chips in response to the article.[27] Supermicro filed a letter with the Securities and Exchange Commission stating that it was "confident" that "no malicious hardware chip had been implanted" during the manufacture of its motherboards.[28]
In February 2021, Bloomberg Business reported that despite Supermicro having been compromised since 2011, U.S. intelligence kept it a secret to gather intelligence about China and warned only a small number of potential targets.[29]
Recent developments[edit]
In November 2021, the joint venture of Super Micro Computer and Fiberhome Telecommunication Technologies won a contract for supplying servers to Xinjiang Bingtuan for 'public safety purposes', which is associated with the suppression of Uyghurs ethnic group and construction of a surveillance system in the province of Xinjiang.[30][31][32][33]
On December 21, 2021, the Washington Post, together with Russian dissident authors Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, accused the company of supplying 30 servers to the Moscow control center for Internet censorship in Russia. Supermicro responded with: “Supermicro complies with applicable laws and regulations, and our policies are consistent with international principles of human rights. We act appropriately to ensure this is the case.”[34]
